The touch of his skin to mine no longer shocked me. That didn’t mean the connection was gone. It was different. Instead of the electricity I’d felt the first time we touched, now our link was more like a familiar blanket. Even though he might only be holding my hand, my entire body warmed with his presence. Still driving along the coastal highway, with the city growing larger in the distance, Nox turned toward me, and I immediately noticed something different in his expression.
“Charli?”
“Yes?”
“Our time is…” He inhaled. Squeezing my hand, he narrowed his light blue gaze. “Damn, I don’t know what to do with you.”
“Excuse me?”
Shaking his head, he slowed the Boxster and pulled off the road onto a scenic vista. Though sunset was still over an hour away, the sky before us was filled with colors. Purples and pinks dominated the horizon as the orange globe of the sun cast yellows and reds in all directions. The blue water shimmered. “I know you don’t really know anything about me, but I can tell you, I am rarely—no never—” he corrected, “hesitant about my demands.”
“Your demands?” My voice came out an octave higher than I planned.
“Do you remember my telling you that my tastes are unique?”
“Yes. No California wine.”
His smile returned. “Well, there is that. I wasn’t speaking of wine.”
I nodded. “Yes, Nox, I remember.”
“Have you had a nice week, so far?”
“I would say nice is an understatement.”
He moved his hand higher on my thigh. “I don’t usually ask for what I want.”
My eyes widened. “You don’t. Does that mean you take it?”
He shrugged. “Yes, but when it comes to sex, I’m not saying it’s ever been against anyone’s will. I can’t remember a time it wasn’t plainly offered or at least assumed.”
“Are you asking if I’m offering?”
“I’m glad you’ve enjoyed yourself this week. I’m ready, more than ready, for you to enjoy yourself more. I’ve tried to go slow on pushing those limits. But damn, time isn’t on our side.”
I tried to swallow, but my mouth seemed suddenly dry. Chelsea’s words came back to me, telling me to have fun and also to think about me. “I promise to let you know if I’m not comfortable.”
Nox nodded. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought.”
I held my breath.
“And I want to explore those limits tonight. I want you to do something for me. Will you?”
I looked from side to side. There were other cars parked along the highway. In front of us there was a railing and steps. The people in those other cars had probably parked and gone beyond the railing, down the hill, to watch the sunset. That didn’t mean we were alone. There were cars passing by at a regular rate.
He squeezed my thigh, bringing me mentally back to him. “Charli?”
I let out the breath. Does he seriously want a blow job right here, before our dinner?
“What do you want me to do?”
“No, it doesn’t work that way. I want you to trust me. I want you to trust me with this one night. I want to spend tonight showing you a small sliver of my unique taste. Then, tomorrow night, our last night together, you can decide if we go back to nice or we explore more limits. Do you trust me?”
I nodded. His offer excited me in a way I’d never imagined. “Yes, I do.”
“And?”
“And…” I gathered my courage. “…I’ll do whatever you want.”
The relief in his expression at my answer took away any doubt. Yes, if for only two more days, I would trust him. “I’m not sure exactly what this means,” I admitted honestly.
“It means tonight you do exactly as I say. Don’t question or overthink it. If you can do that, I promise you more than nice. I promise you a night you’ll never forget.”
Though I felt as though I, Charli, was betraying Alex, the woman I’d worked so hard to be, I agreed.
Nox leaned forward and opened the glove compartment. “First, I want you to slip off your panties and put them in here.”
My eyes must have given me away, because that wasn’t the first demand I’d expected him to make.
He splayed his large fingers under the hem of my dress. “The point of this is that I shouldn’t have to explain. However…” He grinned. “…I seem to make exceptions for you and I’ll do it again, just this once. Take off your panties, as I said, so that I can think about you—imagine you—exposed under this lovely dress. I want to know that as we dine, with you seated in the chair next to me, if I move my hand…” His hand inched higher. “…I have access to you. I want to touch you in plain sight while no one but us knows what’s happening. After we eat, I want to take you by the hand and lead you down the long wooden pier, knowing that you’re aroused. I want to watch your beautiful face as the sea breeze touches what I did. Charli, I’ve taken this as slow as I can…” He reached for my hand and pushed it against his erection. “…I’ve imagined your pussy. Tonight, I want it and since you’ve agreed, I’m going to take it.”
If he’d moved his hand any higher, he’d have found exactly what he wanted. With only his words, I was painfully aroused. That didn’t mean that I could do as he said. “Nox, I’m sorry.”
The sparkle that had been in his eyes only seconds earlier disappeared as his neck stiffened. “I see.”
“No.” I grabbed his hand before he could pull it away. “No, you don’t.”
“What?”
“Nox,” I explained, “I can’t remove something I’m not wearing.”
The look of complete shock quickly morphed to amusement. “Can you repeat that?”
I unbuckled the seatbelt and leaned closer to his ear. With purposely breathy words, I repeated, “I can’t remove something I’m not wearing. You can do everything you said. I’m not wearing anything to stop it, and,” after a kiss to his cheek, I added, “I don’t want to stop you.”
With his large hands framing my face, he stared into my eyes, and I nodded, trying to tell him with my eyes that I trusted him and was being truthful. Somehow our fantasies had become one. A moan filled the evening air as he forcefully pulled me toward him. Our lips united as his tongue probed, willing mine to part. His kiss was mint and whiskey, invigorating and calm. Nox was a walking contrast, a dichotomy of everything I’d known and everything I thought I’d wanted. His unique combination of force and tenderness should be illegal, because with just one taste I was instantly addicted. I scooted closer like the addict I was.
“Damn,” he said when our lips parted. “I’m thinking about forgetting those reservations for table 101,”
I read about table 101 when I’d Googled 333 Pacific. The website said that it was famous for its view and needed to be booked far in advance. How did Nox get that table? Who did he work for?
I wanted the reservation, but I also wanted other things. Tonight was up to him—I’d already agreed to that. Nevertheless, I did my best to sound bold. “If you do that,” I said seductively, licking my bruised lips. “Then I won’t be able to do all the things you mentioned: the table, the seat beside you, the sea breeze.” Saying them made my insides tingle with anticipation.
“No, but I know of other things I want too.”
Rearranging my dress, I sat back into the deep bucket seat. And with a sideways glance, simply stated, “Me too.”
“Oh fuck!” Gravel flew as he threw the car into reverse and spun us toward Oceanside. “To the fastest dinner in history.”
My laugh resonated from deep inside as the sky’s golden hues combined with the purple. I wasn’t sitting in a fancy car. I was floating in the colors, overwhelmed with the euphoria of Nox. I wished I could bottle the sensation and save it for the future. In that moment, I doubted I’d ever feel this empowered and desired again.
THE CONVERSATION BETWEEN Alton, Suzanna, and Bryce stilled when we entered. I held my breath as my mother closed the door.
&n
bsp; “Apparently you forgot to check your watch,” Alton said. “Or is it an issue with telling time?”
“What is this—?”
“Five minutes, Alexandria. Five minutes. It seems a college degree has done little for your ability to follow simple instructions.”
“I was told to play nice and be polite to the guests. That’s what I was doing. You’re not a guest and playing nice isn’t in your repertoire.”
My mother stepped forward. “Alton, we’re here now. I realize this is my fault.”
I narrowed my eyes trying to comprehend the conversation. Her fault?
“Yes, Laide, it is, and we’ll discuss that later.”
My mother shifted as she looked from person to person. Both Suzanna and Bryce met her gaze, but in true Savannah style their expressions revealed nothing.
“Would someone tell me what’s going on?”
Mother led me toward the conference table. It wasn’t as large as a corporate conference table, but it was dark, glossy, and ostentatiously regal. It fit in Alton’s office perfectly. There were four leather chairs on each side and one at each end. The ones at the end had arms and resembled small thrones. When I was little it helped to perpetuate my princess theory. It was probably the table my grandfather had and his father before that. Despite the heritage, I hated that table almost as much as I loathed my bedroom. Each time throughout my childhood when I was caught or accused of wrongdoing, my correction began with a family conference at this table. There were three of us—three. Sitting at this giant-ass table was ridiculous. It was part of Alton’s power play, his demonstration of strength. When I was five, it probably worked. By the time I was old enough to understand overcompensation, I found it humorous.
I stopped walking and laughed. I wasn’t five nor was I seventeen. The Spencers weren’t family, and we weren’t discussing my correction. This was pure bullshit.
My forced laughter filled the room. “Are you all out of your minds?” I moved my outstretched hand toward each person. “What is this? I’m not sitting. I’m not doing anything. And if you want me to go back out to those guests—my guests, ha!… If you want me to go back out there and play the dutiful daughter then someone better answer some damn questions.”
“Alexandria—”
“Alex,” I corrected my mother.
“Alex,” Bryce offered. The years of our friendship rippled through the sound of his voice as he said my name. But that quickly disappeared when I looked at him and remembered the rest of our story, after our friendship.
Bryce had grown up well in the past four years. His shoulders were broader, his chin was defined, and his light blonde hair longer than I remembered. It wasn’t too long, but had a slight wave I’d never noticed when we were younger. He was a swimmer at the academy and had always kept it short. Over the past few years, his lean swimmer’s body had broadened. That wasn’t to say he was heavy. The weight looked good on him, or maybe it was the suit. He definitely looked the part of a Montague minion, all the way to his Italian loafers.
“Hi, Bryce.”
He took a step toward me. “I wish we had more time to explain.”
I shook my head. “Explain what?”
“We have a situation, something that you can help with. Something I’d—we’d—like you to do.”
My mother nodded while Suzanna and Alton shared an expression somewhere between pain and disgust.
I forced another laugh. “A situation? Does this have anything to do with the senator or perhaps the man you were speaking to?”
“No, not really,” Alton offered. “It has more to do with Bryce.”
“I don’t understand. How can I help? We haven’t spoken in four years.”
“No one needs to know that,” Bryce said.
The entire scenario didn’t make sense.
“Alexandria,” Mother began. “Do you follow the news?”
“The news?” I repeated incredulously.
Suzanna exhaled and leaned back against the edge of Alton’s desk, her arms crossed over her chest.
Finally, Alton sat at the table and began to fill in the blanks. As he spoke, I stared at Bryce and tried to judge if any of what Alton was saying were true. By both Mother’s and Suzanna’s expressions, I believed every word. With each sentence, my desire to stand diminished, and my legs grew weaker. Eventually, I collapsed into a chair at the table I despised. By the time Alton was done, all five of us were seated: Alton, Mother, and I in our assigned spots with Suzanna next to Mother and Bryce at the other end.
No matter the severity of the shitstorm blowing around us, Montague Manor had its hierarchy and it didn’t matter that Adelaide and I were the only true Montagues, males still perched like proud peacocks at the top. This place was a prison—an eighteenth-century torture chamber.
I needed to call Chelsea as soon as I could. If anyone could break me out, it was she.
Alton explained that an undergraduate student, a woman, who attended Northwestern, claimed that she and Bryce had been in a relationship last semester. Booth was in Chicago, near Northwestern.
She claimed that Bryce assaulted her, physically and sexually. She went to the police, and they took pictures of her bruises. The rape kit showed sexual activity, but the only DNA was a hair, and Bryce didn’t deny consensual sex. He did deny harming her. Montague attorneys have gotten the unfounded and unsubstantiated charges dropped, and a gag order in place. Unfortunately, about a week ago, someone leaked the story in an on-campus publication at Northwestern, during an early freshman orientation. The author of the article cited the incident as an example of a continued cover-up by university officials regarding sexual abuse of female students. No names were listed in the article. Alton believes that the author was aware of the gag order and didn’t want to pay the excessive fine. However, that didn’t stop other outlets from picking up the story. It was immediately run by a Chicago network and within hours was plastered all over social and news media.
The description of the perpetrator was vague, but there have been reporters sniffing around. The human resources and publicists for Montague suggested withdrawing the offer to employ Bryce, but Alton wouldn’t hear of that. Bryce continued to claim his innocence and Alton believed him. As CEO of Montague Corporation, Alton insisted that they find another way to lessen any possible negative impact to Montague Corporation if the full story were to be released.
The temperature of the room rose as everyone turned toward me.
“Darling,” Mother began. “This is your name, your company. You’ve had your time to see the world.”
I could scarcely believe my ears. “California is hardly the world.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t know what you mean.” I looked around the table. “I don’t know what any of you want from me.”
Bryce cleared his throat. “Alex-x,” he stuttered, not completing my whole name. “I didn’t do it. You know me. You know who I am. No one knows that we haven’t been in contact.”
I did know him, and that didn’t reassure me.
When I didn’t answer, he went on, “Sure, I took that girl out on a few dates, and yes, we had sex, but look at me. Look at my family and the job I had waiting. I’m not only a Spencer but also a Carmichael. I don’t need to force anyone for sex. Why would I risk everything over some piece-of-trash college freshman?”
My stomach turned. “Freshman? Like eighteen?”
“Yes, she was legal.”
Oh God. That wasn’t where I was going with that. I may only be twenty-three, but Bryce was twenty-five, almost twenty-six. That was an eight-year difference. I pressed my lips into a straight line, reviving my Montague mask, the one that revealed nothing.
“Alexandria, dear,” Suzanna’s angry tone from the parlor had been replaced with saccharine sweetness—as artificial as ever. She wanted something from me and suddenly, we were friends again. “I’ve been upset with you, as you know, because your choice to move to the other side of the coun
try upset my son. Once you have children, you’ll understand how we mothers feel everything our children do, but even more intensely.”
“How did it feel to rape a girl?” I asked.
Suzanna and Mother gasped, both sitting straight as if my words had the power to physically harm them. Simultaneously, the room echoed with the slap of Alton’s hand against the shiny wood. “Alexandria!”
Bryce’s brief look of anger magically morphed to hurt. I remembered seeing that transformation once before—no, more than once actually. It was that time I told him about Stanford that the anger lasted longer than a short moment, but there were other times I’d seen him upset, when we were young and then as teenagers. Did I think Bryce Spencer was capable of physical assault? Yes. An incident at the academy came to mind when he’d used a younger student as a punching bag simply because he’d made some comment about swimmers. If I recalled correctly, that incident was quickly brushed under the proverbial rug as well. After all, universities like Princeton and Duke didn’t look kindly at applications from students with records.
Did I think Bryce would hit a woman—a girl? I didn’t know.
With large gray puppy-dog eyes, Bryce asked, “Alex, how long did we date?”
Date? Was it still dating when he was at Duke and I was forbidden from seeing anyone else? Forbidden, or exiled?
“From the time I was fourteen until I graduated: four years,” I answered.
“How long were we friends before that?”
“Our whole lives.”
“How many times did we have sex?”
Are you kidding me?
I felt my cheeks redden, but not from embarrassment—from anger. “What the hell? You want to have this conversation in front of our parents?” I was too upset to separate Alton from that generalization.
“Yes,” Bryce replied. “I do. If I remember, we had the same conversation many times, alone.”
It was my turn to slap the table. “I’m not having this discussion with you again, alone or in front of an audience. It doesn’t matter.”
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